The results of a survey on the nature of social attitudes toward language learning are presented. A review of previous surveys indicates strong community support for language learning, but those surveys did not contain information specific enough to explain why language enrollments are declining in Australia. For the present survey, three hundred subjects were interviewed at random, divided equally into groups termed "migrants,""Australian-born," and "students." Several strong trends emerged: (1) a favorable overall attitude; (2) oral skills were favored; (3) the failure to develop oral skills to an acceptable level was seen as the main factor causing students to drop out of language learning; (4) support for some sort of language requirement; (5) early introduction of language instruction; and (6) "student" attitudes tended to be less favorable than those of the general public. The results of this survey confirm those of previous studies. They suggest that the root causes for the "malaise" in language teaching lie in the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of what the system has offered, and the damaging effects of many administrative decisions. (AMH)